The American Vandal

An episode built around an interview with Tressie McMillan Cottom covers what lessons the rest of Higher Ed can learn from HBCUs [3:00], the vectors of financialization in the New Gilded Age [19:00], the migration of the for-profit model into not-for-profit institutions [60:00], and how Modern Monetary Theory might invigorate the Black University Concept [84:00].

Cast (in order of appearance): Jared Loggins, Matt Seybold, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Kelly Grotke, Andrew Douglas

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/LoweEd, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

A Morehouse college commencement speaker makes an extraordinary financial commitment, but there's a "profound story" to tell about the durable funding of HBCUs in the US since the Gilded Age [12:00]. How does philanthrocapitalism work? [42:00] What is the Double Tax? [48:00] How might EdTech extract "intellectual capital" from HBCUs? [54:00] Can the second curriculum be sustained inside a philanthrocapitalist university? [64:00] Are HBCUs the vanguard of a new era of disruption to education? [74:00]

Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Andrew Douglas, Jared Loggins, Kelly Grotke, Crystal Sanders, Jelani Favors, Dominique Baker

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Morehouse, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

A brief history of HBCUs through conversations with five scholars about the second curriculum which informs movements for Civil Rights in the midcentury US, segregation scholars and the long withholding of postbaccalaureate education from HBCUs [40:00], the aspirational Black University Concept in W.E.B. DuBois and Vincent Harding [75:00], and the challenges facing HBCU students today [84:00].

Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Jelani Favors, Crystal Sanders, Andrew Douglas, Jared Loggins, Dominique Baker

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/HBCU, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

As Nathan Wolff himself puts it, his recent keynote address at the 2024 Quarry Farm Fall Symposium is "very much in dialogue with The American Vandal." In this talk, Wolff not only summarizes Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's "The Gilded Age" (1873), but further interpolates it with concepts like Lauren Berlant's cruel optimism, György Lukács's historical novel, and Raymond Williams's structures of feeling, all of which have been cited frequently in our "A Tale of Today" series. While this episode departs from the usual format of this podcast, listeners to the current season will undoubtedly see the synergy between recent episodes and Wolff's excellent keynote.

Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Nathan Wolff

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/FirstAsFarce, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

If you would prefer to watch Nathan Wolff speak, the keynote is also available via our YouTube Channel.

Organized around a comparison of György Lukács's "The Historical Novel" and Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner's "The Gilded Age," in this episode we take a detour from Jameson to Lukács, question what realism means [8:30], whether "The Gilded Age" is a historical novel [19:30], whether historical novels are intrinsically conservative [33:30}, whether novelists can live up to Lukács's high expecations [41:00], what distinguishes historical novels from historical fictions [64:30], and who are the "spreasheet men" [85:00].

Cast (in order of appearance): Brandon Taylor, Matt Seybold, Eleanor Courtemanche, Nathan Wolff, Anna Kornbluh, Jeffrey Insko, Alexander Manshel

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Lukacs, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

From Fredric Jameson on why "the most important goal is history itself" follows a series of conversations about dialectical criticism vs. new historicism [5:00], the wisdom of "always historicizing" [17:30], the anxiety of influence between new historicism and literary fiction [34:00] as well as between literary fiction and history [53:00], hinge points and shadow presentisms [59:00], and the layers of discourse about history in 2024 [88:30].

Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Eleanor Courtemanche, Jeffrey Insko, Anna Kornbluh, Robert Tally, Alexander Manshel, Walter Johnson

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/AlwaysHistoricize, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

What's the difference? The episode opens with defenses of presentism by two literary critics and a reception history of "The Gilded Age" [6:30] before turning to a critique of resistance history from within the discipline [12:30], a response from a prominent historian [44:30], a consideration of the standpoint of resistance history [67:30], and why aren't there more literary critics on MSNBC? [75:30]

Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Jeffrey Insko, Anna Kornbluh, Asheesh Kapur Siddique, Walter Johnson, Astra Taylor

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/ResistanceHistory, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

Earlier this Summer, Matt Seybold asked Anna Kornbluh what Fredric Jameson meant to literary criticism. On the occasion of his passing, we'd like to share her answer.

A new episode of "A Tale of Today" begins with an explanation of the forest charter and the enclosure of the commons through a revisionist version of a familiar story. The enclosure of the commons is then traced into The Gilded Age [8:00], before two scholars of the novel discuss its affective registers, as well as Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's fraught attempts to periodize and historicize its contemporary political moment [21:00].

Cast (in order of appearance): Astra Taylor, Matt Seybold, Nathan Wolff

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/RobinHood, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

A new season inspired by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's 150-year-old novel, "The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today," launches with an introduction to Colonel Sellers; a discussion of Astra Taylor's "The Age of Insecurity" (2023) [10:00]; questions about the discipline of history in the contemporary moment [28:00]; and Walter Johnson reflecting on resistance and his 20-year-old essay "On Agency" [41:00].

Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Astra Taylor, Asheesh Kapur Siddique, Walter Johnson

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/AgeOfInsecurity, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com